- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
I apologize if this is old news, but I just noticed it. It looks like Kagi has added Fediverse Forums as a default Web search option.
I apologize if this is old news, but I just noticed it. It looks like Kagi has added Fediverse Forums as a default Web search option.
Cool. Wish more search engines would do that.
But, as far as Kagi goes, it’s a paid service and it’s an American company. So I won’t be using them.
Writing them off as an American company is totally valid, but I’m happy to pay for a quality service because it keeps ads out and lets me vote with my money. It’s really not much to cling to psychologically, but it helps. When I and others completely degoogle our lives it moves no needles at GoogHQ, but paying subscriber metrics are a KPI discussed in every board room in the world.
Lile they say, perfection is the enemy of privacy! Kagi has been the best as an engine out of all I’ve tried. If a better competitors comes up, I’ll give em my money.
What non-american search engine do you use?
I ask friends who are more intelligent than me
And if they don’t know I assume it is forbidden knowledge that would drive me mad to know
(I am only half joking)
No one mentioned open source alternatives, so I’d add: https://docs.searxng.org/
https://metager.org/ is run by a German non-profit. Since late last year it’s pay to use because their advertising partner (Yahoo) cancelled their contract without warning. But it’s cheaper than Kagi. Also the non-profit is part of the project that’s building the European OpenWebIndex ( https://ows.eu/ ) that’s releasing this year.
Startpage.com
Better than qwant in my opinion.
Mojeek
Search engine? I started rawdoging urls a while ago.
The internet is increasingly more useless, the sites i really need are bookmarked anyway.
And I like swiss cheese on my ham sandwiches. Oh, sorry, I thought we were just saying non sequitors.
In all seriousness, that is not an answer to the question. Yes, some (often older) people will always use a search engine to find the same website they browse all the time. But search engines are also incredibly valuable for finding new things or verifying claims. I have a bookmark for the Warframe wiki but that doesn’t help me when I want to research different monitor energy efficiencies or find a repair guide for my toaster oven.
And while people CAN collect a set of (searchable) websites for different topics they are interested in… that is how we got into (one of) our current mess(es). How many people just use reddit for everything and thus make themselves vulnerable to corporate shittery and misinformation campaigns.
That’s three paragraphs of “I took this serious.”
Oh- oh!
That’s, uh… A sentence!
Did i win?
Instead of bookmarks I use the “share to Standard Notes” option. It names the note after the link, saves the link, allows you to write a summary or tags, and makes it all searchable so it is findable later rather than disappearing like a needle in a haystack.
Works best when you’ve got a web ring or other friendly community of contributors to reference against one another.
But those are few and fair between in the modern day.
Qwant. It’s French.
And Qwant is really great! Have been using og for a couple of years, and have no need to fall back to Google, DDG etc.
It uses Bing in the backend though.
I write questions on bathroom stalls and then check back in on them every few days.
Why are you using Grindr Classic for search?
For the personalized results, ofc
That was you?
Well then, in answer to your last question scrawled in the Kansas City Walmart bathroom, yes, you should definitely get that checked out by a medical professional.
Not working, the only response I get is penis
That’s internet for you.
And then you write your own (wrong) answers below it in a different hand writing and pen. And call it SEO.
Does anyone use yacy?
I tried, years ago, I think their federated approach to building a database and crawling are cool - but at least the last time I checked, the actual search algorithm was just too bad. It often gave me completely irrelevant results and seemed very susceptible to spam sites gaming Search Engine Optimisation.
Yeah I had it crawl a site I knew was mostly unique. Left for a day and searched, nothing. I had to give it the entire url for it to pop up with anything…
Search is actually something that is kinda hard to get right. I just dont like having so many sites that are just small holes into google/microsoft/etc…search engines. I was hoping there was something out there that works.
Not using Kagi because its an American company is valid. But people are too used to products that are free because they make the person using them the product. There is still a transaction with a free product.
Kagi is not free because they respect your privacy and don’t sell your data.
I don’t use them or never read their privacy policy so i don’t know. But it’s not because it’s a paid service that company won’t use your data to sell it for more profit. That’s EXTRA profit for them, so why the hell not. And them being based in the US means I already can’t trust them with their poor privacy laws.
I’d happily pay for search, but Kagi is way too expensive.
10 searches a day, for $5/month? (US)
Like, that is way too much.
I can receive thousands and send thousands of emails per day for that price. Is search really that much more expensive?
$10/m is unlimited searches though…
And yeah, searches are actually quite expensive. There’s a LOT of infrastructure that goes into making something unique with your own search engine that isn’t just a wrapper over Google.
The actual compute cost per search, in 2024, was $0.0125. Kagi states they want to keep Costa below $0.015 per search, but their search partners are a major expense.
That ofc ignores all the supporting infra, devs, support…etc that goes into making it all possible.
The business model just doesn’t make sense then (using search partners).
Because $60, let alone $120 US, a year is far more than most people would be willing to pay.
Dunno what to say, it’s just more than most people can justify paying for the service.
I’m gonna stick with DuckDuckGo and the newly free mullvad cached search
I mean, the business model works? They make money, they pay staff, and they are growing.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, people have price sensitivity of course. You are projecting yours onto “everyone”, is it not a successful business?
There’s a niche they cater to, if you are not that niche then you are not that niche. Doesn’t mean the niche doesn’t exist.
Sure, but I’m still feeling like complaining that there isn’t a business that’s made affordable pay-to-search a thing. (That I know of)
I’m not taking back that $120 USD/year for search is way more than most people would be willing to pay
Though yeah, I suppose saying their business model isn’t working was hyperbolic, I must admit.
There are plenty of paid products that do not respect your privacy and sell your data.
And there’s free products that do respect your privacy and don’t make you the product. They are community products.
For instance I offer my bandwidth and storage to thousands of strangers to share torrents and they do the same to me. No secondhand transactions happening.
That’s definitely one model for operating a public service, but its far from the only one.
I have donated €1500 to opensource software projects and paid a whopping €7 for software. These (privacy respecting) projects got my money because they weren’t transaction based. Capitalism is not the only way.
I’m not a fan of Kagi’s founder, so I generally don’t use it.
Any specific reasons? I’m a very happy Kagi user and the founder is active on their discord and seems like a really nice guy.
There was this debacle, at least
Hmm yeah I was aware of that but personally didn’t see it as a reason not to like Kagi… Lori came across as quite drama seeking without solid arguments imho. Thanks for the response!
Don’t trust him based on his prior comments